Nowadays, the increasingly progressive development of network and communication technologies bring about the diversified portable devices, such as digital electronic products like notebook computer and the like, featuring price-effectiveness, compactness and portability in the daily life and work. In addition to solving the demand of wireless communication of ordinary people, other entertainments and data management requirements, e.g. various digital games and databases, are also available, making the use of the portable devices become commonplace particularly in the busy metropolitan life style. Moreover, keeping abreast with the industrial readiness and more and more added peripheral functions, the functions possessed by the current portable devices already surpass the earlier basic model by a substantial extent and the added peripheral functions are essential now, accounting for a major trend under development.
Furthermore, owing to the current notebook computer being more and more light and thin, the conventional 2.5″ hard disk (HDD) is apparently hard to meet the light and thin requirements of the notebook computer. As such, the 1.8″ HDD is applied instead accordingly and has become a new trend. However, some notebook computer manufacturers, such as TOSHIBA, produce the 1.8″ HDD having a design with no screw hole on the HDD body. Therefore, the fixing means of the HDD body is extremely difficult.
Most of the notebook computer manufacturers today employ a rubber and a bracket means to fix the HDD body. Although the application of the rubber ensures the shock prevention effect of the HDD body, the HDD body fails to be grounded due to the non-conducting nature itself. Hence, certain construction materials must be added to secure the grounding effect, and this certainly introduces a hike on the production cost of the notebook computer manufacturer relatively.
The mentioned shock prevention and grounding issues are the test criteria necessarily conducted on the HDD body for the present notebook computer manufacturer to install the HDD body upon integrating the computer and to secure the HDD body in conformity of a test standard. Besides, the resulting electromagnetic interfering (EMI) out of the operation of the HDD operation also impacts on the notebook computer and jeopardizes the health of human body. In view of this, many countries have already requested to pass the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) before the actual sales to the market.
The so-called EMI means an electromagnetic noise generated during the operation of instruments and devices containing electronic and electrical components or the useless signal of device interfering with other devices by way of radiation or transmission to result in malfunction or distortion of other devices. As a result, it becomes an issue as to if the HDD body can be effectively free from EMI (EMI). In that sense, products with superior design against EMI thus have more values to be distributed and marketed globally.
Please refer to FIG. 1 below showing the schematic diagram of the conventional HDD body using the rubber sheath:
In FIG. 1 a containing room 11 concavely disposed on one side of case 10 of a notebook computer is conspicuously found and the containing room is just enough for the HDD body 12. The four side edges of the HDD body 12 are covered with a rubber 13 so as to ensure the shock protection effect of the HDD body 12 by virtue of the elastic characteristics of the rubber 13. However, as the rubber 13 is a nonconductor, it fails to achieve the grounding effect for the HDD body 12. Consequently, it is necessary to dispose a conducting part (not shown) on the inner surface of a cover plate (not shown) of the containing room 11 so as to attain the grounding effect by means of the conducting part in contact with another conducting part 121 on the surface of the HDD body 12.
Whereas, in addition to a required mold causing higher cost, the mentioned approach employs costly materials and certain structural design must be added in terms of the grounding and EMI protection. All these make the effective cost reduction out of reach. Furthermore, the requirements for shock protection, EMI protection and grounding have been demanded more rigorously due to the readiness of the industry. Aside from the constant technical upgrade, the cost-down factor is on top of the list when notebook computer manufacturer takes into account a new design.
In summary, how to be unique in the rising homogeneity among the electronic devices sheds the light on the wining measure to the manufacturers. As such, how to design a product capable of overcoming the mentioned drawbacks and enhancing the competitive edge of manufacturers is an immediate subject for manufacturers to tackle.